The Isolation of College Libertarians

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/opinion/the-isolation-of-college-libertarians.html

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LEWISBURG, Pa. — A liberal arts education should push students to take intellectual risks and see the world in new ways. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always play out that way.

Leftists, in an effort to make campuses welcoming — ostensibly, for everyone — end up frequently silencing conservative and libertarian students. They paint any argument that isn’t progressive as immoral, so conservative students can find themselves branded as such. Needless to say, this can be socially isolating.

Animosity toward campus conservatives and libertarians was a common topic among students at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend in Washington. Many of us who attended are outliers on our liberal campuses, and there was a general feeling of excitement and relief to be among like-minded peers.

One discussion, about how to deal with protests against conservative speakers visiting campus, became a bonding session for those of us who have found that we can’t bring up controversial topics without being told we are fomenting hate or invalidating someone else’s existence. One student remarked that it was harder for him to be openly conservative on campus than it was to tell his peers he was gay.

I am a senior at Bucknell University studying economics. I am a libertarian: I believe in limited government and the importance of individual liberty, especially the right for people to be whoever or whatever they want, regardless of skin color, sexual orientation, religion, gender or political leanings.

I see the attempts of students from both sides of the political aisle to “silence” one another. But there are a lot more liberals than conservatives at most campuses, and a growing tendency to reject conservative ideas as oppressive is taking a toll on learning.

Sometimes it is subtle. For example, when I argued that a $15 minimum wage might hurt some workers by pricing them out of the labor market, a fellow student accused me of a lack of empathy for the poor. There was no attempt to grapple with the data I presented on academic terms.

Often it is more overt. When Christina Hoff Sommers, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, spoke on Bucknell’s campus a few weeks ago, members of the audience shouted her down. During the Q. and A. segment, a professor repeatedly interrupted Dr. Sommers, setting a poor example for students to respectfully disagree with her opinions.

Dr. Sommers was critiquing campus politics and intersectional feminism, so things were bound to get heated. Issues deserve spirited debate. But baseline hostility to conservative thought makes productive conversation difficult.

Paradoxically, a result of being discouraged from discussing conservatism is that conservatives and libertarians are drawn to more inflammatory figures. Even if we don’t agree with their divisive speech, listening to polemics push back against the endless rules that govern political correctness can be a real relief.

Last spring, I invited Milo Yiannopoulos, the right-wing provocateur, to speak at Bucknell. He was controversial at the time for a flamboyant, over-the-top act in which he said whatever he wanted. There are limits to this shtick: Mr. Yiannopoulos recently resigned from his job as an editor of Breitbart when an ugly joke he made about Catholic priests and young boys was interpreted as an endorsement of pederasty. I am not blind to the concerns over Mr. Yiannopoulos. But there is a reason for his immense popularity as a campus speaker.

Still, because I invited Mr. Yiannopoulos, a professor said publicly that other students at Bucknell should “impose a steep and lasting price” on me and my peers. We were singled out as “racists and fascists,” and I returned to my dorm one evening to find “Tom is a fascist” written on the door. The Bucknell administration was silent.

I understand the irony here. Conservative students criticize the left for seeking protection from ideas they don’t agree with — for defining themselves as victims — and here I am arguing for protection for conservative and libertarian students. But when educators react so violently to ideas and controversy, they shrink the intellectual space of the university environment. They foster an academic atmosphere in which students refuse to question progressive orthodoxy. Worse, some students shy away from asking questions, knowing the social price they might pay.

Political intolerance is hardly confined to one side of the aisle. If conservatives represented the majority of students on campus, I am sure they would be silencing liberals. Universities must push back against the narrowing of ideology generally to guarantee an open intellectual space for all students.

At a time of increased political tension in the country, it is also important for colleges to push students to learn how to grapple with different views. It was Mario Savio, the socialist leader of Berkeley’s free speech movement in the 1960s, who argued that the university should be an intellectual realm where the “hard light of free inquiry” can be brought upon any and all ideas — be they liberal or conservative.